Alan stepped out of the Land Rover and peered down the long driveway. After jackhammering over three hundred miles of washboard roads, he had hoped for better. It was nearly impossible to reconcile the aggregation of shacks littering the Canadian clear-cut with Frank’s description of the place. For a moment, he wondered whether this was another of his brother-in-law’s malevolent practical jokes. But the delaminating plywood ‘Johnson Outfitters’ sign appeared too weathered to be a recent forgery.
Alan panned the landscape through his Leica’s viewfinder. How had Frank described the place—bucolic? If that were true, Cabrini Green had been upscale. The Upper Michigan ghost towns he shot in 2015 looked more accommodating. Icons like Adams or Porter wouldn’t have wasted a single frame on the scene; after all, there's a difference between clutter and squalor. But he had resolved to record the entire adventure. Alan stashed the Leica behind the driver’s seat and grabbed his Hasselblad. Desolation such as this demanded the severity of black and white. He snapped off a few shots and then resumed his drive up the lane.
The cluttered yard was hardly reassuring. Half a dozen vehicles in varying stages of decay lay among the buildings. A ’59 Chevy lay in state on naked rims, its cat eye taillights peeking out from a tangle of blackberries. The perforated shell of a vintage Mustang hunkered down beside the skeleton of a Jeep. Oil drums, paper trash, and a toppled satellite dish rounded out the scene. The house, a tarpaper-clad hovel with concrete-block steps and a smudgy stovepipe jutting through the roof appeared just marginally more inhabitable than the other shacks.
Alan turned off the engine and felt it rising within him again—that sinking feeling. For decades, he had known the phrase only metaphorically. But his years with Deborah had transformed it into a physical entity—a smothery nausea in the throat that inevitably slid into the gut like the slow-motion initial drop of a roller coaster.
As he tried to swallow the sickening swell building behind his Adam’s apple, a skinny dog bolted out from a brush pile. Alan rolled the window down a crack. "Hi, pup."
The dog snarled and leaped against the door, its claws raking the rented SUV’s finish. A boy appeared around the corner of a shed. He gave Alan a cursory glance, then squatted in the gravel and began building a small teepee of sticks over a crumpled wad of paper.
He rolled the window down a little farther. "Could you call your pooch, son?" The dog leaped up and bit at the side-view mirror. The boy’s only response was to set a match to the paper.
Alan gave a short blast on the horn, and the shack's front swung open. An old man stepped onto the concrete block porch. He started down the steps. “Goddamnit, get!” and the dog slunk off toward the weeds. The man snatched a chunk of cinder block, then hurled it along with a second epithet at the retreating beast. Alan shook the trembling from his hands and climbed out of the Land Rover. "Quite a watchdog you have there. What breed is he?”
The old man shrugged. “Wolf and something.”
"I'm Alan Kurtz.” Alan held out his hand. “You must be Orin Johnson.”
Alan felt little enthusiasm in the old man’s grip. "I expected you yesterday."
"I had to tie up a few loose ends back in Chicago."
"Price is still the same." Johnson's face could have been an Avedon study— weathered and craggy as the surrounding Rockies; ravines etched into his cheeks and forehead, a crooked promontory of a nose. And perhaps it was just the ill-trimmed beard, but his countenance seemed just a bit asymmetrical, as though Mother Nature had carved one side of his face, taken a century-long lunch break, and then finished the remaining side from memory. “You said on the phone you're here just to take pictures?”
“I hope to sell a pictorial article to National Geo,” Alan answered. “I mainly want photos of Dall sheep, Bighorn sheep, and goats.”
“You’ll see Bighorn and goats,” Johnson said. “Any Dall sheep you see is going to be one lost son-of-a-bitch. Southern edge of their range is a couple hundred miles to the north.” He started across the yard. “We’d better get moving.”
On his way to the corral, Johnson stopped beside the boy and nudged him with a toe. When he got no response, Johnson stomped out the fire and yanked him up by an arm. He turned the boy to face Alan. “This is my kid.”
The youngster stared past Alan, his flat face a mask of disinterest. Tufts of hair, the color of anemic soil, jutted from beneath his stocking cap. He had his father’s short, bowed legs, but his shoulders were broader and more heavily muscled.
Alan offered his hand. “I’m Alan. What’s your name?”
“He’s Jerry,” the old man answered.
“The strong, silent type?”
“He’s pretty much deaf.”
An embarrassed burn surged into Alan’s cheeks. “Sorry. Does he sign?”
“We do some signs.”
Alan spelled out, "Hello, I am Alan," one of the few phrases remembered from an American sign language video.
The boy stared at Alan’s gesturing hands. His eyes, a dull pewter, mirrored the overcast sky. He looked at his father. Johnson shrugged.
“I guess my signing is rusty,” Alan said.
"We got our own signs." Johnson motioned with his head, and the boy began walking toward the corral. “We’ll saddle the horses. You get your things.”
“What about the dog—the wolf?” The implicit danger in the word sent a chill through Alan.
“Heave a rock at him. He’ll run off,” Johnson called over his shoulder.
On his way back to the vehicle, Alan stooped to pick up a baseball-sized rock. He knew he’d never use it. Still, the rock’s heft imparted a certain comfort.
As Alan pulled his knapsack and a pair of matching duffel bags from the Land Rover, the dog materialized around the skeleton of a pickup. The creature glanced over at the corral, then trotted toward the SUV. Alan held up the rock. “Stay!” The dog broke into a run. Alan dropped the rock and dived into the back of the SUV.
The dog put its front paws on the rear window and stared inside. “Please go away,” Alan called out. “Shoo!” The dog dropped onto all fours and began sniffing Alan’s gear.
Johnson reappeared as the dog was lifting his leg on the knapsack. He started into a bowlegged trot, hurling curses at the animal.
Alan waited until the dog loped away before crawling from the vehicle. He forced out a smile. "It seems my karma’s a little out of whack today."
"I hope you get on better with horses than dogs," Johnson said. He nodded toward Alan’s gear. “Christ, you got enough to save the Donner party.”
“I wanted to be ready for anything.”
“You gotta cut way back. I only got two pack horses.”
Alan spread out his gear onto a scrubby patch of lawn. He knelt among his possessions. “Everything looks so essential.” He looked up at Johnson. “Where do I begin?”
“With this.” The outfitter nudged a backpacker’s pillow with his boot. “A couple extra pairs of socks will do you better.” He pointed to the neck of a liquor bottle peeking out from under a pair of Dockers. “Now, that’s essential.”
Alan felt a small rush of gratitude that Frank had recommended the pint of Southern Comfort. “Break it out some night,” he had said. “You’ll thank me.”
Alan commenced filling the duffel, Johnson hovering close, judging each item with a nod or a derisive grunt. Frank described Johnson as "colorful" and "a character." From Alan's vantage point, that assessment of the old outfitter was generous.
When the bag seemed close to bursting, Alan wedged his drum in and forced the zipper closed.
“What’s that?”
“A Haida drum.”
“You’re a Indian?”
“No, I’m not Native American.” He hoped the subtle correction would take.
"If you’re no Indian, why the drum?"
“I incorporate elements of Native American religion into my spiritual life.” He pulled his Mackinaw out of the vehicle.
Johnson shot him a skeptical look. “I had one of them once. Froze my ass off.”
“But it’s a Filson. Virgin wool. Alaskan prospectors wore them.”
“Sure. Along with a pair of long handles and a couple of sweaters. Give me a down ski jacket any day."
The boy came out of the corral, towing a string of four tired-looking horses. He grabbed Andrew’s duffel and lashed it between two oversized saddlebags on the lead packhorse. Johnson handed the reins of a swaybacked mare to Alan.
"I get to ride Rocinante?" Alan said.
"Her name's Rita.”
“I meant Rocinante. Don Quixote’s horse.”
“I don’t know any Don Coyote,” Johnson said. “I bought her from a guy named Anderson.”
“No. Don Quixote. Man of La Mancha?”
Johnson stared at him blankly.
"Dulcinea? Sancho Panza?”
Johnson turned away. “Call her whatever you like, but get on her. We got some hard miles before we make camp. You’ve rode before?”
“A little in the past."
Alan secured his camera bag to the saddle horn and watched Johnson mount up. He noted the series of moves: left foot into the stirrup, the grasping of the saddle horn, a little bounce, then the arc of his right leg over the horse’s hindquarters. He ran the sequence through his head again before pulling himself into the saddle.
The boy hoisted a knapsack onto his back, then took up position between Alan and the packhorses.
“Your son doesn’t have a horse?” Alan called out.
“Him and horses got issues, you might say.”
“I can at least carry his pack on Rocina—on my horse.”
Johnson started his mount with a kick in the ribs. “He manages.”
Alan shook the reins gently. The old mare sighed and fell in behind the boy.
The group set out through the clear-cut, wending their way through a labyrinth of brushy snags and old stumps weathered a tombstone gray. It felt good to be on a horse, the soft set of old leather reins in his hand, the saddle creaking in synch with the nag's rolling gait. How long had it been? A good thirty years. Not since a family visit to Wisconsin. And that had been maybe a dozen barebacked circuits around the cattle pen on an uncle’s geriatric draft horse.
“How far is the game preserve?” Alan asked.
Johnson pointed to the distant line of mountains, their summits obscured by the marbled ceiling of clouds. “Over that ridge and four more like it.”
Despite the overcast, Alan felt a crisp, optimistic bite in the air. Every cool inhalation seemed to purge more of the city’s spiritual and physical toxins from his system—exhaust fumes, the crush of appointments, the venom of competition.
Johnson’s son trudged ahead, his gait measured, almost metronomic. How many times, Alan wondered, has the boy walked this trail, his feet landing on the same rocks and earth? And, like the erosive forces of wind and rain, have his repeated footfalls ever slightly reshaped the terrain?
Something rustled behind him. He turned and caught sight of the dog slinking behind. “Mr. Johnson. That dog isn’t going to attack me again, is he?”
“Only if Rosie’s Auntie bucks your ass off her.”
Finally, the chaos of the clear-cut surrendered to a meadow of knee-high grass. The sun eased from behind the cloud bank, sending a swath of light across the valley floor. Alan felt a hitch in his breath. He had been in Chicago's concrete and asphalt confines for so long, existing on the periphery of Deborah’s depressions. It was as though his vision had dialed down to black and white. Surrounded by this rich palette, it felt like the valley displayed every shade of green, gold, and earth tone at the Creator’s disposal. Alan pulled back on the reins and reached for his camera. “I have to catch this on film.”
Johnson twisted around. “It’ll still be here when we get back. We gotta make time.”
The trail ended at the bank of a shallow river. Johnson gave his horse a kick in the ribs. Horse and rider plunged down the incline and straight into the current. The packhorses followed in kind.
The boy charted a different course, hopping from one rock to another, some jutting out of the river, others just beneath the surface. He moved carefully but confidently despite his burden—forward, right, left, sometimes even backward, as though negotiating some fractured, subsurface tightrope.
Alan shook Rocinante’s reins. She remained motionless. He gave her a gentle prod with his heels. “Giddy up.” The horse held her ground, venturing forward only after the boy passed midstream. She shivered slightly as her front hooves hit the water. The horse kept a constant distance between herself and the boy, stopping when he veered sideways, retreating when he moved back in her direction. Alan could see the two were old partners in this dance.
After Rocinante clambered up the bank, Johnson led his party through a narrow slash in the wall of trees and into the forest proper. The thick canopy allowed access to precious little sunlight. Only a single, unimpeded shaft yawned from the trailhead behind them. When their route hooked to the left, even that sliver of light disappeared.
The twilight felt unwelcoming, almost hostile. Wind rasped through the treetops. Alan half-wished he still had the dog’s belligerent company. Something exploded from the underbrush, sending a rush of sweat across his torso. “What was that?”
“Spruce hen, most likely,” Johnson answered.
The trail cut back again, and Jerry disappeared into the forest. Alan marked the boy’s uphill progress by his litany of grunts and snapping branches. As they rounded the next switchback, the boy jumped back onto the trail. He labored a few steps, then plunged back into the wood. "Your son doesn't subscribe to the path of least resistance," Alan said.
"He gets in a hurry.”
A low branch grabbed at Alan’s hat. He pulled back on the reins. Rocinante coasted to a stop, letting out what sounded like a grateful sigh. Alan pulled out his small tree guide and thumbed through the pages. It was a poor time to regret buying cheap. Judging from the vague illustrations, the surrounding trees could have been either Douglas firs, white pine—or even Sitka spruce, which, according to the book, "is used in the construction of fine, stringed instruments." Alan gazed at the surrounding evergreens, imagining the legion of violins, guitars, and harps lay dormant beneath their rough skins. And he felt a pang of guilt for exiling his Celtic harp to basement storage only two months after its purchase.
Alan urged the mare back into motion. Chicago, even Johnson's homestead, felt far distant in terms of distance and time. He could almost sense the souls of the aboriginals and mountain men trudging the trail. "Mr. Johnson, what Native American tribes were indigenous to this area?"
"Joe Smiley and his folks live about five miles north of me," Johnson answered. “He’s mostly Cree and a decent sort when he's sober. His wife Janey, I think she's Assiniboine. She’d steal the gold right outta your mouth.”
The first few hours, Rocinante's rolling gait had felt comforting, even therapeutic. But as the trail steepened, she began to struggle. Her stride deteriorated into a series of punishing lunges, progressing from irritating to uncomfortable to painful. By the time the trail widened into a small clearing, the ache in his lower back was nearly unbearable.
The clearing bore Orin Johnson’s signature. At the far edge, a mound of fire-blackened cans and sundry half-burned trash spilled into the forest. A fire pit monopolized the center of the clearing beside a tall, fire-scarred conifer.
Johnson swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a crude hitching post. The boy set down his burden and then began to unload the packhorses.
Alan slid from his mount, clinging to the saddle horn when his knees threatened to buckle. “Guess it’ll take a minute to regain my land legs.”
“Happens,” Johnson said.
Alan performed a few shallow knee bends. "I'm not the natural horseman Frank is."
"Natural horseman?" Johnson snorted. “Every time that jackass dismounted, he waddled like a buggered duck.”
Alan pulled his camera case off the saddle horn. “Can I help?”
Johnson shook his head. “We got a system.”
Alan took a few tentative steps and scanned his surroundings: the ravaged evergreen, the trash heap. He walked to the downhill edge of the clearing. A skein of Canada geese strung out across the eastern sky in a mutating vee. Bloated cumulus clouds, their bellies fire-tipped by the setting sun, hung above the jagged horizon. A haze had descended upon the valley below, melding trees and rocks, blending greens and yellows into a soft blue-gray. The mountains’ progressing shadows oozed over the landscape like warm tar swallowing a Monet.
“Dinner’ll be ready in a half hour,” Johnson called out.
Alan waved a thank you. Half an hour was barely enough time for his evening ceremony. Worse yet, he didn't see one square foot to avoid Johnson's hypercritical gaze. Alan pulled his small, catlinite pipe and the drum from his bag. He started toward the woods, then paused at the forest edge. “Are there any bears in these parts?”
“No, the wolverines keep ‘em away.” Johnson's faint smirk gave Alan hope the old man was joking.
Alan stepped into the dense underbrush. Branches pressed against him, resisting his progress, tugging at the drum. After a few minutes, the brush relented at the foot of a giant conifer. The spot seemed far enough from the campsite for privacy yet close enough to hear the faint, reassuring clang of pots, the snorting of horses, and the occasional curse.
Alan brushed away a few cones, then settled back against the trunk. This country possessed such diverse and terrifying beauty. Within the borders of the previous six hours, they had passed drop-offs so sheer a single misstep could send a person tumbling into space and through forests so thick a body couldn’t fall over without sincere intent.
He tamped a pinch of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, struck a match, and lit the pipe. Before he could offer smoke to the four directions, something skittered across the forest floor. His scalp prickled. Another creature rustled behind him. Pinpoints of sweat burst from his pores. They’re just squirrels or maybe chipmunks, he told himself. But his deeper self said wolf, bear— wolverine. He snatched the drum and started toward the clearing. A branch clawed his left ear. He glanced off a small tree. A root rose and tripped him. He stumbled into the clearing on a half-run. To his relief, no one appeared to notice his panicked return. Orin Johnson hunched over a portable table. The boy was pulling wood from his knapsack and stacking it into piles.
Alan walked over to Johnson, doing his best to look casual. A blue, enameled coffee pot ticked and rumbled on one of the camp stove burners. A stew of some kind simmered on the other. Johnson was tearing wads from a lump of dough and arranging them in a Dutch oven. He glanced up from his work. “Enjoy your walk?”
“It helped me work out the kinks.”
“You best settle into your tent,” Johnson said. “It'll be dark after supper." He pointed a doughy finger. “That far one is yours.”
The tent, an old canvas affair, hardly appeared welcoming. The canvas was an abstraction of irregular patches, and its profile rivaled Rocinante's. Alan crawled inside, dragging his gear in behind him. The interior stank of mildew. Every night, the previous week, he had barely been able to fall asleep, anticipating idyllic nights, snug in his sleeping bag and bathed in the bracing bouquet of pine. This tent reeked like a dirty gym sock. Alan crawled from the tent and tied back the flaps.
When he joined Johnson by the camp stove, the old man handed him a steaming bowl. “This’ll put lead in your pencil.”
Chunks of meat and vegetables bobbed in a grease-mottled broth. “What is this?”
“The best damn venison stew this side of Whitehorse.”
“I don’t eat meat. I told you that I’m a vegan.”
“Christ,” Johnson said. “I thought vegan was some cult, like a Hindu or Mormon.”
“Can you just eat the carrots and potatoes?”
“I’m afraid not,” Alan said. "The meat has tainted them.
“How about some scrambled eggs?”
“Nothing animal.”
Johnson rummaged through his larder, muttering the occasional "shit" and "goddamn" under his breath. He pulled out a pair of potatoes. “I can fry these up for you.”
“That’ll be fine.”
Orin hacked up the potatoes and tossed them into a skillet. He dipped his spoon into a jar, then paused. “Bacon grease is a no-go, too?”
Alan nodded.
“Butter?”
“Sorry.”
“Jesus H—,” Orin’s tone could have been embarrassment or disgust. "I could throw the spuds in the fire. They'd ready in maybe a half hour."
“Don’t bother.”
“I got some biscuits and syrup.”
“Did you use animal shortening in the biscuits?”
“Crisco, whatever the hell that's made of.”
“Hydrogenated oil. It’s a potential carcinogen.”
Johnson sighed. “Well, hell.”
“That’s okay. I brought some snacks along.”
Alan hurried back to his tent. As he dug around for the trail mix, the pint of Southern Comfort slid from the knapsack. Despite its seemingly spontaneous appearance, he couldn't consider this a full-blown sign. But, coupled with Frank's cryptic hint: "SoCo is to Johnson’s jaws what WD-40 is to a rusty hinge,” it might have been a little cosmic nudge. Alan stuffed the bottle into a vest pocket, the trail mix into another, and scuttled out of the tent.
Johnson sat cross-legged by the fire, ladling the stew into his maw. He held out a plate of biscuits. “Sure you don’t want a couple?”
“Thanks, no.” Alan settled down near the fire. The clouds on the horizon now looked cold and pregnant. “Think it’ll snow tonight?”
Johnson shook his head. “Frost tonight. Snow tomorrow.”
They sat in relative silence, Alan crunching his trail mix and Johnson slurping the stew until Jerry appeared dragging a section of an evergreen. The boy tossed a few branches onto the blaze, causing it to smolder and hiss. A breeze eddied around Alan, wrapping him in a shroud of gray smoke. He swabbed his smarting eyes. “Nothing like the smell of a wood fire.”
“The kid likes ‘em,” Johnson said. “But it'll be a cold day in hell before I drag as much as a chopstick halfway across the wilderness to make one."
“There must be plenty of wood out here."
"I’d bet enough to burn your goddamn Chicago again." Johnson sounded a little embarrassed.
Alan pulled the bottle out of his pocket. “Ready for a little digestif?”
Johnson brightened. “Don’t know about that, but I wouldn't turn down a drink.” He held out his cup.
Alan cracked the seal and tilted the bottleneck into Johnson’s cup. “Say when.”
The amber liquid nearly lapped at the rim before Johnson said, “That’ll do.” He frowned as Alan capped the bottle. “You’re not drinking?”
“I’m more of an IPA person.”
“It would do me pleasure if you had a drink.” There was more insistence than invitation in his voice.
Alan poured one lean finger for himself. Johnson clinked his cup against Alan’s. “Here’s to you.” He took a healthy swallow and then gave Alan a look.
Alan swirled his cup around. He hated the cloying, syrupy liqueur. But, under Johnson's unwavering stare, there appeared no option. He took a small swallow and shuddered at the alcohol's aromatic burn. He forced a smile. “Good stuff.”
"Your boy’s wood stash.”
Johnson drizzled syrup over a biscuit. “He’s been playing with fire since he could toddle. Eight years back, we was up here.” He paused to chase down a bite of biscuit with a slug of liquor. “It rained steady from day one. So wet the devil couldn’t have raised a spark. But the kid tried and tried. When I dragged him in the tent, he raised such Cain, I set up a rainfly and let him stay out."
The evergreen branches ignited with a woof, their needles crackling like snapping threads. “Anyways, the kid got a bad ear infection. Played hell with his hearing. From then on, he brings wood along."
The boy then settled down with his dinner. He ate slowly, his gaze fixed on the blaze.
“And his mother?” Alan asked. “Is there a Mrs. Johnson?”
The old man slipped the last bite of biscuit into his mouth and looked away. Alan saw he had gone too far. “Will we see sheep tomorrow?”
Johnson shook his head. “Day after next. And we’ll be pushing it to do that.” He tossed a pebble at his son and then pointed toward the horses. Jerry let out a plaintive "Aww."
Johnson pointed a threatening finger. The boy tilted the bowl to his mouth and sucked it dry. He took a final look at the fire, then sulked into the dusk.
“Damn kid should have fed the horses before supper," Johnson muttered. "I'm getting too lax with him."
There was a hollow thud, and a horse whinnied. “What was that?”
"The boy don't like that mare you're riding. Last fall, she nipped off a piece of his ear." Johnson pulled out a pouch and rolling papers. “You hear anything from that brother-in-law of yours?”
“Only that he hopes I enjoy my time here as much as he did."
Johnson snorted. "Hell, he bitched sunup to sundown."
“That’s odd,” Alan said. "What didn’t he like?”
"The weather, the mountains, the food. You name it."
"He’s very proud of his trophy."
“I got that ram for him.” Johnson spat into the fire. "That jackass couldn't hit a grizzly if he had the rifle stuck up its ass.”
Alan shifted position, and his right heel caved in a corner of the fire as Jerry returned. The boy snatched a stick and rapped the sole of Alan’s boot.
Alan swung his leg away. “What's your sign for I'm sorry?"
“Don’t got one.”
Alan mimed, “I’m sorry,” but the boy had already returned to tending the fire.
"He's a cheap bastard, too, your brother-in-law is. 'Keep the meat,' he says. 'I just want the head.' We get back to my place, and he wants a partial refund because he gave me the meat."
Johnson held his empty cup out toward Alan. By the time he said, “When,” the bottle was empty. He raised his cup in a silent toast. "He kept grousing till I agreed to give him fifty bucks for any referral."
Alan frowned. That explained Frank’s unbridled enthusiasm for the Canadian Rockies—and Orin Johnson. "He's the best guide in all of Canada," Frank had claimed. “Probably the whole Western fucking Hemisphere.”
A pitch pocket exploded, sending a geyser of sparks skyward. The boy's mouth fell open. His eyes followed the ascending sparks until the last one burned out. He whacked the fire with his stick. A second miniature cyclone of sparks swirled into the blackness.
As Frank had predicted, the Southern Comfort proved a stellar social lubricant. The first cupful made Johnson increasingly talkative and semi-sociable. But halfway through the second cup, his monolog deteriorated into a barely intelligible smear of syllables, and his chin began a slow, halting descent.
The boy reached for another piece of firewood, but Johnson shook his head. He snubbed his cigarette and labored to his feet. “Morning comes early. And we got ground to make up.” He tapped Jerry’s shoulder and placed his palms together. The boy nodded. Johnson patted his shoulder and hobbled off toward his tent.
“What did you tell him?” Alan asked.
“To say his goddamn prayers.”
Alan stood and slapped the dirt from his pants. After the campfire's impression faded from his retina, he shuffled carefully into the darkness. The crescent moon contributed little light for his walk back to the tent. Before crawling into his tent, Alan glanced back to see the boy’s silhouette in the dying fire’s dirty, orange glow. There was a thud, an explosion of sparks, then a curse from Johnson’s tent. “Goddamned kid.”
Alan performed a quick strip and dived into his sleeping bag. He retrieved his affirmations book and a flashlight from his knapsack. The day’s meditation on tolerance of incompatible personalities expressed the perfect sentiment for his present situation. He made a quick entry into his journal and then settled deeply into the mummy bag. The thin mattress pad afforded little comfort. More than ever, he missed Deborah’s ample, accommodating warmth. But this time apart might provide the perspective they need to heal their relationship.
Lately, he couldn't say anything right. Like his innocent quip at Frank's party the previous weekend: “Any man who believes in male superiority hasn’t tried folding a fitted sheet.”
Deborah hadn't uttered a word on the ride home. Then, as they dressed for bed, she said, “So laundry is only a woman’s job?”
When he blamed his remark on the glibbing influence of his second hard cider, she countered, "Alcohol always brings out true feelings," before slipping into another of her expansive, punishing silences.
Alan rolled up a chamois shirt and slipped it under his head. The weight of the day seemed to hit him at once. He fell asleep quickly despite the jab of a collar button in his cheek.
***
First, there was the musty odor. Then, the stiff neck. Finally, Johnson cursing at the packhorse named Bill. Alan cracked open an eye. Sunlight filtering through the canvas bathed the tent's interior in an olive-drab pall. Yesterday had not been a bad dream.
"Time to get up, Mr. Kurtz," Johnson called. “We’ve got to make time today.”
Alan watched his breath rise in clouds and condense on the tent peak. He curled deeper into his bag, trying to ignore the numbing gloom radiating from his center. Could this be how it is for Deborah? he wondered. Her fits of melancholia, as she called them. Those black holes from which aura work, flower essences, and guided meditation at best provided only temporary respite.
Alan pulled his clothing into the sleeping bag. The addition of each clammy article sent a new wave of chills coursing through him. He crawled from the tent. Simply standing was a painful proposition. The subtle but constant strain of riding had taken a toll. His inner thighs felt as though they'd been pounded with a bat. He performed a few shallow knee-bends and then started toward Johnson at the cookstove. The boy, huddling over a small blaze at the fire pit, didn't acknowledge Alan as he passed.
Johnson gave Alan a cursory nod. “I’m fixing some flapjacks. But I ain’t frying them in bacon grease.”
“Great.”
“Just good old Aunt Jemimah, milk, and—”
“Milk. That’s dairy.”
“Shit.” Johnson jammed his spatula under a flapjack. "I could make some with water, but they'd taste like fucking fry bread.”
“I’ll just have some trail mix.”
“There’s some leftover biscuits,” Johnson offered. “If you don’t mind the hydrogized Crisco.”
Alan paused to consider the impact of a minimal quantity of trans fat. “What the heck. A few grams of the stuff won’t kill me.”
Johnson actually chuckled. “Grab some coffee.”
Alan poured a steaming cupful and raised it to his lips.
“Let ‘er cool a bit,” Johnson warned. "That metal cup'll scald a layer of lip off you.”
Alan set down the cup. The nurturing warmth of his regular morning coffee would be one more thing he would miss during this junket.
Johnson dropped a trio of biscuits onto a plate and rationed a teaspoon of syrup over each one. "Eat up quick now. We got ground to cover."
***
A feeling of snow hung in the raw evening wind as Alan slung the last of his gear over the makeshift clothesline. Of everything in his pack, only the plastic bag of trail mix had remained dry during the fatal river crossing. He felt grateful he had slung the camera bags from Rocinante's saddle horn. Otherwise, they would have suffered the same fate as his journal. He sat on a nearby stump and started peeling apart page after sodden page. Nearly six months' worth of remembrances, sufferings, hopes, and revelations—meticulously laid down with his favorite fountain pen—now bled together in an indigo stain. The day's events would forever be high on his list of major disappointments.
From the very outset that morning, Johnson had set a punishing pace. Before the party crested the first ridge, both packhorses had worked up a heavy lather. By the time they'd encountered the river, Rocinante's sides were heaving like a blacksmith's bellows. Then, right in mid-crossing, Old Bill the packhorse stopped. Alan could still see the poor nag swaying drunkenly in the knee-deep water, head down, tail drifting in the current. The poor beast had barely flinched as Johnson scourged his haunches with the lead rope. Then, like some slow-motion extra in a Peckinpah film, the horse sagged forward into the water and rolled onto his side, the current pillowing against his burden.
Alan tossed the journal into his tent and joined Johnson beside the camp stove. "Other than my journal, everything should dry out eventually.
“Journal?”
"It's a diary of sorts. It's completely illegible now. Must be a sign I shouldn't hold onto the past."
Johnson slammed his fist into a mound of dough. “It’s a sign I got to buy another goddamn packhorse, is what it is.”
His tone seemed to imply Alan was responsible—maybe by arriving one day late, he had killed the horse. But the old man had pushed the pace, not him.
Johnson ladled stew into a pair of wide, shallow bowls. He handed Alan an empty plate and a fork. “I got something special for you.”
Alan followed him over to the fire ring. This clearing was a near twin to its predecessor, right down to the trash pile and campfire-tortured evergreen. The old man fished a foil packet from the coals and dropped it onto Alan's plate. “Careful. It’s damned hot.”
Alan folded back the foil, revealing a steaming mound of vegetables. He speared a chunk of carrot. The grievously-overcooked vegetable had all the structural integrity of pâté and conveyed the acrid bite of scorched herbs.
Johnson watched him expectantly. “Well?”
Alan could see the situation called for diplomacy. “Very⎯flavorful. Do I taste oregano?”
Johnson dropped his gaze as though embarrassed by the non-committal praise. “It’s called I-talian seasoning. Last fall, I guided a group of Dagos from New York. One of them brought the stuff and forgot it.”
Under Johnson's periodic scrutiny, Alan labored through the mushy vegetables, bite by pungent bite. By the time he forced down a last unpalatable morsel, his mouth tasted like the aftermath of a brush fire.
As Alan pulled the trail mix from a vest pocket, he noticed the boy staring intently. "Is it okay if he has some, Mr. Johnson?"
Johnson swabbed his bowl clean with a portion of biscuit. “Suit yourself.”
Alan dumped a good portion onto the plate and held it toward the boy. Jerry looked over at his father. Johnson nodded, and the boy snatched Alan's offering. He separated the different ingredients into piles before starting to sample them. Neither the peanuts nor the sunflower seeds produced a discernible response. The raisins brought a smile to his lips. A tentative pinch of coconut elicited a low "Mmmm." He stuffed all the carob chips into his mouth and almost immediately spat them into the fire.
“I’ll be damned,” Johnson said. “Last guy who come here gave the kid a chocolate bar, and he about inhaled it.”
“Yes, that is funny,” Alan said. Explaining the difference between carob and chocolate hardly seemed worth the effort.
Jerry spat on his hands and wiped them on his jeans. He smelled his fingers, then devoured the remaining coconut.
Alan stood and stretched. “I better start a fire and dry out my things.”
“Might be some paper in the trash pile to help get her started," Johnson said. "Or, you could bring a few things over by this fire." The offer sounded less than heartfelt.
"Thanks, but I've already hung them up."
Alan scavenged an armload of branches from the clearing’s perimeter. He dropped them near enough to dry the clothes, far enough to avoid igniting them. He fashioned a teepee of sticks over a wad of crumpled paper, then set a match to it. The paper flared up but quickly died. Alan's second try yielded a few smoldering twigs.
Before he could make a third attempt, Jerry appeared and knelt beside him. The boy scraped a pile of birch bark shavings from a stick and cupped them in his left palm. He retrieved a glowing twig and cradled it in the nest of shavings. He worked with a mechanical proficiency, easing a few shavings over the ember, nursing it to life with a few soft breaths.
A thread of smoke rose from the tinder, followed by a tongue of flame. There seemed a reverence in how the boy eased his tinder bundle into the lopsided pile of kindling. He pulled Alan's sleeve and motioned toward the fire. As Alan blew on the tiny flame, it grew larger, hungrier. A birch limb blistered and burst into flame. The boy added a few more substantial sticks. Alan leaned back on his elbows, head reeling.
The boy rummaged around the clearing's perimeter, returning shortly with a pair of long branches. He handed one to Alan and took a seat across the fire. Jerry whacked the fire with his stick. His eyes followed the sparks spiraling into the darkness. He gestured to Alan, who followed suit, sending another glowing shower of sparks skyward. The boy issued a strangled laugh and smiled.
Johnson stepped into the ring of light. “Appears the party’s moved over here.” He dropped his saddle between Alan and Jerry. “You don’t happen to have another pint of Comfort, do you?”
Alan shook his head. “Sorry.”
Johnson felt a few items hanging on the line. “These shirts’ll dry out. But I don’t hold out hope for your bag.”
“That’s not good news.”
“We can fix you up.” Johnson plunked down on his saddle. “We’ve got four saddle blankets for starters. Well, three, anyway. Old Bill’s is soaked.” He pulled a lumpy, hand-rolled cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Or, I suppose you could use my bag."
This offer also lacked the ring of sincerity. Considering Johnson was barely tolerable on a good day, it seemed unwise to risk further deterioration of his demeanor from a bad night's sleep. “The saddle blankets and my jacket should be enough.” Alan nudged the fire with his stick. The boy watched the sparks ascend, then smiled again at Alan.
Johnson struck a match and lit his smoke. “You’re from Chicago, then.”
“All my life.”
“Bulls fan?”
“Go Jordan.”
“I’m a Celtics fan. Sometimes they have all white guys on the floor."
“Imagine that.”
“Who was that jackass on the Bulls that dyed his hair and had so much hardware in his mug he looked like he'd fell face down in a tackle box?”
"I couldn't say," Alan lied.
“Goddamn sports is turning into a—"
Alan thumped the fire.
Johnson slapped an errant spark from his pant leg. “Jesus Christ! Now he’s got you doing it?”
Alan and the boy grinned at each other. It felt good to share a joke with Jerry, a private one beyond the old man’s understanding. Derailing the old man's malevolent train of thought was a bonus.
But Johnson's mental railroad had many tracks, each ultimately dead-ending in a rant about some person or institution that screwed him. Everyone from old Bill’s previous owner— “Bastard told me he’d be good for ten years”—to Canada’s current administration occupied his shit list.
Alan stared into the shimmering heart of the fire while Johnson droned on, only offering an occasional "Imagine that" or "Really?"
Glancing across the fire, he caught the warmth radiating from Jerry's eyes. The connection felt like pure communication—an understanding between two souls, unaided and unhindered by the spoken word. He closed his eyes to drink in and celebrate the feeling.
Alan awoke alone, stiff-necked and shivering. The fire was down to a few smoldering coals. The horse blankets lay in a mound beside him. He stood and checked the clothesline. His sleeping bag was a clammy no-go. Alan crawled into the tent, dragging the stinking blankets in behind. He layered them over his legs and torso, then scratched a quick journal entry on a flour bag from the trash pile. "Cold, aching, tired. But all is well.
***
For the second consecutive morning, Alan found waking up easier than getting up. It seemed difficult to imagine the same sun created both the harsh sunlight penetrating the tent and the nurturing rays that filtered through their bedroom curtains in Chicago. Alan tried to roll over but found his clothes crudely folded and packed around him. Too groggy to explore the mystery, he slung a forearm across his eyes.
He was slipping back into the sweet sanctuary of sleep, when Johnson roared in his dry, congested tenor, “Goddamned fucking bacon anyway!”
Alan threw off the blankets and shimmied from the tent onto a thin layer of snow. After a second day in the saddle, he had expected his discomfort would have lessened. If anything, he felt worse. Hamstrings, calves, arches, nearly everything but his eyelashes ached. He performed a trio of shallow knee bends, then limped across the clearing.
Johnson was stabbing at a frying pan from an arm's length with a long-handled fork. He greeted Alan with a grunt and a nod. “That bacon. It’ll spit like a bastard.” He reached down, snatched a handful of snow with his handkerchief, and pressed it against his cheek.
Alan poured a cup of coffee, then set it on the cook table to cool. “You have a gift for predicting the weather.”
“No gift. I checked with the weather service just before you showed up,” Johnson said. “Of course, those bastards being right is a small miracle.”
Alan took a tentative sip of coffee and looked over at the boy. As expected, his new friend was feeding a small fire in the fire ring.
Johnson motioned to the table. "I cooked up some flapjacks. Of course, I had to do them in hydrolated.”
Alan picked up his plate and started toward the campfire, Johnson closely behind. The boy gave Alan a quick smile. His eyes still retained a spark of warmth from the previous night. Alan returned his silent greeting. Jerry pulled Alan down beside himself.
"Seems the boy's taken a liking to you." Johnson handed his son a plate, then eased himself down on a stump. "That's a rarity."
Alan pulled the trail mix from a vest pocket. "Is it all right if I give this to the boy—to Jerry?"
“Suit yourself.”
Alan handed the bag to Jerry. The boy stuffed it beneath his sweater, scooted close, and scraped his bacon onto Alan's plate.
“Kid’s taken quite a liking to you,” Johnson said. "First, he burns up half his wood drying out your gear last night, and now he gives you his bacon." He issued a dry chuckle. “Seeing as pork ain't hardly a vegetable, you got yourself a problem."
Alan prodded one of the fat-ribboned strips with his fork. He hadn’t eaten anything animal for nearly a year and even longer for bacon. But the prospect of rejecting this gift felt so wrong. He broke off a small piece and set it on his tongue. The texture felt unfamiliar, even foreign. But no meat substitute could match its luxurious richness and mouth feel. This evening, he would offer thanks to the pig’s soul. And back home he could mail a check to a local animal shelter. Not an ideal solution, but a sincere compromise. He picked up a slice and took a more substantial bite.
“Well, look at you now," Johnson cackled. "Another week with us, and you'd be chewing the backstrap off a mule deer on a dead run.”
***
About half an hour into the morning's ride, Alan's stomach had begun to percolate. Bacon, he concluded, isn't the ideal meat for exiting a vegan lifestyle. Bacon as a gateway meat leading to the "harder stuff" like foie gras and veal. Funny, he thought. He ran it through his mind again—gateway meat, foie gras, veal. He wished that Jens or one of his savvy friends were along on the junket. Sharing the witticism would be wasted on his current companions. He imagined trying to explain it to Johnson.
"You know, bacon, a gateway meat to veal. Like marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin and cocaine."
“You’re saying that bacon leads to drugs?”
“No, other meats like veal.”
"Veal leads to drugs?"
No, it would just be reframing the Rocinante/Don Quixote farce.
As the party ascended, trees grew shorter, the stands sparser. Finally, the forest fell away completely. They passed through inclined meadows of pale grasses punctuated with jumbled ridges of rock. An occasional sleepy-eyed marmot chirped in protest of their presence before waddling into its den. A few small birds, perhaps juncos or chickadees, according to Alan's bird book, flitted about. Whenever Alan insisted on stopping to capture the mountain’s severe magnificence on film, Jerry fidgeted, braiding and lighting handfuls of dead grass.
At midday, after a light lunch, Johnson grabbed his rifle and a coil of rope. “Now we walk. It’s too rough for the horses from here on.”
As Johnson led them onward, the landscape lapsed into a tedious sameness; treacherous expanses of rock rubble, talus Johnson called it, interrupted by meager patches of grass. Alan trudged on, focusing on Jerry’s heels a few yards ahead. His heart hammered, and his head swam in the rarified air. Twice he slipped, sending slabs of rock clattering down the slope. The wind had grown hostile, almost predatory. It pounded the group, sometimes head-on, other times eddying around and ambushing them from behind.
Finally, the old man held up his hand and sprawled onto his stomach. "Sheep.”
Alan scanned the terrain ahead. “Where?”
Johnson pointed at a handful of beige specks near the top of the ridge. Alan unpacked his gear. He pulled his Leica from the case, attached a telephoto lens, then zoomed in on the animals. There they stood, at a distance of nearly three hundred yards, ten sheep in all; three ewes, five young, and a pair of immature rams. The rams were disappointing, horns at best only half curl. Alan snapped off a dozen shots of ewes with their young, a few of the young males clumsily jousting. "I was hoping to see a good ram."
Johnson pointed above the other sheep. “Like that one?”
Alan stared through the viewfinder again. What was he missing with a 300X lens that the old man saw with his naked eye? He panned the horizon twice before he saw the flash of a horn as ridged as wind-eroded rock. Moments later, the ram crested the ridge. He was an old warrior, thick-bodied with a scarred Roman nose and massive, and slightly-broomed, full-curl horns.
Alan locked his tripod and fired off a series of shots. He stopped down the aperture a few clicks, then took more. The ram turned broadside as though consciously posing for him. The creature's muscular, tawny flanks and alabaster rear end appeared etched into the cobalt sky. Alan switched filters and resumed shooting.
"You done yet?" Johnson asked.
Alan snapped off a final shot. “That’s it.”
An explosion fractured the air. A young ram staggered drunkenly. The herd scattered over the ridge. The ram crumpled, then skidded down the mountainside, coming to rest, scissored between a pair of rocks.
Alan’s ears rang painfully. “What the hell?”
“A little meat till I get my elk.”
“But this is a wildlife preserve!”
“It ain’t like I shot a goddamn ewe,” Johnson slung the rope over his shoulder and motioned to the boy. He looked at Alan. “You coming?”
Alan sagged back against the mountain and shook his head. Johnson and the boy set off. Alan rolled over and began to follow their progress through the camera lens.
Father and son spent nearly an hour of crab walking across slides and clinging to steep slopes until they reached a narrow ledge above the dead ram. Johnson cinched a loop of rope around the boy’s chest just below his armpits. Jerry slid over the ledge and began to pick his way down the rock face, jamming his free hand into cracks, taking toe holds on tiny outcrops of rock, his father feeding out the rope one arm length at a time. Finally reaching the ram, he tied the rope around its horns. Johnson began hauling the carcass up. His son hugged the rock face. A rush of vertigo overcame Alan as he watched the boy huddle on the meager outcrop of rock.
Johnson hoisted the sheep onto the ledge, then lowered the rope over the lip. The boy tied a loop beneath his armpits. Johnson braced himself, keeping the line taut as Jerry picked his way up the mountain face. A few feet below his destination, the boy's handholds failed. Johnson reared back. His feet stuttered close to the edge. The boy swung against the mountainside, clambering for purchase. Alan’s stomach lurched as Jerry labored hand over hand back onto the ledge.
Johnson knelt beside the ram. He slit the animal up the front. The old man castrated the ram in a single stroke and tossed the scrotum over the ledge. He next slit the animal up front, reached into the cavity and severed the windpipe, then pulled the entrails from the body cavity. The viscera oozed over the edge, painted a bloody scar down the rock face, ricocheted off the outcrop, and plunged out of sight.
Alan snapped off shot after shot, capturing each step of Johnson's butchering process: decapitating, skinning, hacking it into quarters. As much as it sickened him, the authorities would appreciate the documentation.
After Johnson lashed half of the carcass to the boy and the other to himself, they began picking their way across the mountainside. Alan watched Jerry's progress through his lens. Obviously, Johnson didn't value his son any more than he did the horses. The child deserved so much more from life: decent clothes, an education, and nurturing parents. He and Deborah could give him these things. And Jerry was precisely what they needed to put their trivial problems in perspective--another soul to focus on. The idea wasn't so crazy. He and the boy had already initiated a warm, sharing relationship in only one evening.
Father and son rejoined Alan barely ahead of the mountain's advancing shadow. Alan was on Johnson even before he could shrug off his burden. He waved a trembling finger in the outfitter's face. “You bastard! You goddamned bastard!”
Johnson lit up a cigarette. “What crawled up your ass?”
“Your boy could have been killed.”
Johnson turned away. “Well, he wasn’t.”
"Goddamn, you!" Alan grabbed Johnson's shoulder and spun him around. “You don’t deserve to have a child.”
A blow from behind dropped Alan to his knees. A following knee drove him face down to the ground. The boy straddled him, and Alan covered the back of his head with his hands as the boy continued pounding him. Alan rolled onto his back and thrust out his hands to divert the blows. The boy bit down. A bolt of pain shot up Alan’s arm. He felt a jarring blow against his left temple. The mountainside tilted, went gray, and then black.
***
Orin Johnson tossed Alan’s duffel bag into the back of the Land Rover. “Yeah, that was quite the accident you had,” he said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
Alan recognized the thinly veiled warning beneath Johnson’s words. But the threat wouldn’t hold water when he and his kid were behind bars.
Then, as though he had read Alan’s mind, the old man added, “You know, plenty of folks around here would say my kid’s as harmless as mothers’ milk. Unless somebody attacked his dear, old dad, of course.” He slammed the Land Rover’s rear door. “I’d bet for fifty bucks your peckerhead brother-in-law would swear to it.”
The raw wind felt abrasive against Alan’s bruised cheek. Lights arced in his right eye as he climbed behind the wheel of the Land Rover. A detached retina, no doubt about it.
The journey back to Johnson’s had played out like a nightmare montage: Outsized shadows cast on his tent by the young monster’s nightly fires, Old Bill’s half-eaten carcass lying in the river, snatches of forest and clear-cut valley, then eventually the outfitter’s wolf mix stalking the river’s edge upon their return to the valley—all filtered through the flashing interference in his left eye.
Pain had been the one constant on that descent back to the valley: the dry, grinding ache behind his right eye, a pulsing throb in his mangled middle finger, the rhythmic twinge in his left rib cage dictated by Rocinante’s syncopated gait.
Johnson waved his son over to the SUV. He clasped his two hands together and pointed at Alan. The boy shook his head. Johnson cuffed his ear. The kid turned and, slouching obliquely, offered a hand. Alan scrutinized the boy’s dull, belligerent countenance. How he ever imagined the young brute possessed even an ember of humanity was a goddamned Miss Marple mystery.
“Mr. Kurtz,” Johnson said, “It’d be bad manners not to say goodbye.”
Alan reached out the window and briefly touched the boy's hand. He exerted no pressure and received none in return.
Johnson cracked an amber-toothed smile. “It warms my old heart to see you boys parting on such good terms.” He started away from the Land Rover. “Well, that new carburetor won’t install itself. And this is no place to be without wheels.”
Alan checked his eye in the rearview mirror. The sliver of sclera peeking out between his swollen lids shone an angry red. He reefed the steering wheel to the left and aimed the Land Rover toward the driveway. Threat or no threat, there'd be hell to pay when he contacted the cops, the Mounties, or whoever the fuck.
Within a hundred yards of the highway, a movement in the side mirror caught his eye. The dog had broken from the ditch and was giving chase. Alan eased up on the accelerator. His gaze darted back and forth between the mirror and the driveway. The beast was in an all-out sprint and quickly closed to within a few feet behind the Rover. Alan drifted to the left and slammed on the brakes. His chest snapped forward against the shoulder harness, a shower of light exploding in his eye. There was an abbreviated yelp. Alan looked back to see the dog dragging its hindquarters toward the ditch. Johnson hobbled into view, firing off a volley of indiscernible curses. Alan thrust his bandaged middle finger out the window and pressed down on the accelerator.
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